At the present time, there are many shoe drying techniques. For many years people have been using heat, draft air or a combination of both. Some are more complicated requiring their own heating source and their own draft air while others are more simple and require an external source of heat, air draft or a combination of both. However all of them have a major draw back. These systems require a significant volume of space for storage and shipping, or the need for disassembling if compact storage is required. It is obvious that any kind of shoe drying method that has its own heating and draft air source is best when no other external heating source or draft air is available. But if a draft air or heating source is already available in the existing home, then the self contained drying equipment is not needed, is more expensive and requires a significant amount of storage space which is a hard found luxury in most homes. This is a great inconvenience for a device that is used just a few days out of the year. Other methods that require external heating, draft air or a combination of both may or may not be as effective as the self contained methods, but they are more inexpensive than the self contained methods. Unfortunately all the present available systems require a significant amount of storage space, inconvenient assembling and disassembling for compact storage and expensive shipping containers and tariffs which are a large percentage of the customer's purchasing price.
Case in point: U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,656--Helmot Jannach's device is large and bulky. U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,078--Lorne R. McCartney's device is obviously a bulky and expensive device. U.S. Pat. No. 4,200,993--Roger Blanc's device is also bulky and expensive. U.S. Pat. No. 4,085,519--Nicholas Masika's device is very simple, but requires a significant storage space and large shipping containers. U.S. Pat. No. 3,793,744--Vasufumi Saita's device is also bulky. Other patents like U.S. Pat. No. 2,267,634--Albert N. Arenz and U.S. Pat. No. 2,294,607--Chester E. Peek, are very simple but also require a significant volume for storage and they require external hanging means if they are to be placed over a floor heater register. Other designs such as U.S. Pat. No. Des. 244,419--Alwyn Anderson, U.S. Pat. No. Des. 292,534--Louis Basaraba and U.S. Pat. No. Des. 293,145--Leland G. Hughes are all very simple devices but also require a significant volume for storage.
U.S. Pat. No. Des. 208,372--William S. Spangle's design is a simple rack attached to a floor register, obviously a permanent part of the register that requires the inconvenience of fasteners for removal and installation. Another patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,715--Givliano Celli's invention is for storage of boots. It is used for drying boots but not shoes. My invention is for drying shoes, not boots. Besides, Celli's device has the inconvenience of having to be disassembled for compact storage, and reassembled when installation is needed. It also requires more parts and more complicated manufacturing than my invention.
Many other shoe racks require hanging means such as U.S. Pat. No. Des. 93,021--C. S. Jennings, U.S. Pat. No. 2,690,571--M. F. Gamble, U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,962--Juan G. Arias, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,006,328--M. J. Widenhofer's invention is a cigar rack. At first glance it looks like my invention and as though it would serve the same purpose. Upon observing further, you would be able to determine that if one half of the cigar rack was used for supporting a shoe, it would not work. The shoes have to be leaning backwards to keep the device from collapsing and this of course would cause lifting of the floor register. Besides, Loop "F" would cause the register to sit too high off the floor. It is true that his invention could stand independently on the floor and support two pairs of shoes, but my device is meant to be more compact, for one pair of shoes, occupy very little floor space and capable of being stores in a large mailing envelope. His rack is more complicated and difficult to manufacture and requires more material to manufacture than my invention.